Reconditioning

I naturally wake up at 5:30 am every morning. In graduate school, I'd lay in bed and snuggle John for about 15 minutes, and then I'd gently wake him up for our morning run. We ran together every weekday morning for about 5-7 miles, and we often did longer runs on the weekends. It was that glorious time in our lives - you know - the bonding time after we got married and before we had kids.

About a mile from our apartment was this great big hill, dubbed "The Church Hill" because of the huge stone church at the summit. The hill itself was quite long and very steep - the ultimate challenge for our morning runs. When we first started that route, I would have to trick myself to get up that hill. I'd mark off short distances to run to, and then, when I got to that tree or bush or flower in the sidewalk, I'd focus on the next thing until I reached the top. I could hear the blood pumping in my ears. I'd huff and puff as if my lungs were about to explode. But most of all, there was a shaky, rubber band feeling in all of my muscles that made me wonder if I could keep going even when I did reach the summit. The more and more John and I ran that route, the easier it became. Then we started sprinting up it. We'd race to see who could get to the top fastest. We'd poke fun at the slow poke, and heaven help you if you had an off day and couldn't get to the top! That hill remained a challenge for what seemed like years.

Then we took a huge hiking trip out in the Canadian Rockies. We didn't think twice about knocking off a 20 mile hike at high elevation one day, and then another 18 miles or so the next. I don't think we did anything less than 15 mi. on any given day. The world was so beautiful! There was so much to see. There was that incredible feeling of being on a mountainous pass and seeing space like you can't imagine. The world seemed so enormous, so exquisite, so unfathomably grand. I felt weightless. My mind was so exhilarated by creation, that my body just went, one foot in front of the other, up huge mountains, through huge distance and over obstacles. There was scree. There were huge boulders. There were banks of snow with 500 ft drops if you slipped. We didn't think much of it until we got home three weeks later and realized the Church Hill was weeny. It became so easy that we could literally run up it backwards. (Now, of course, this is the best shape I had ever been in in my life - but still!)

Sixteen weeks of total bed rest does strange things to your body and mind. This morning I got breakfast for the kids and readied them for school, and I took a shower, totaling about 40 minutes on my feet. That same Church Hill feeling of rubber band muscles is back. That same need for baby steps was required just to get the kids to school today. "Just get their boots on, Kathleen. Sit on the stairs and have them come one at a time for coat zipping. Their hats, they need hats. Waddle out to the truck. Just get them signed in. Almost done. One last hug. Waddle back to the truck. Drive the 1/4 mi. home. Sit in the driver's seat until the song is over. Just over the icy driveway and back to the sofa. There. No problem." I abandoned my plan to go grocery shopping. I came in to collapse in the house. I have become a huge, bulbous, pregnant mass, huffing and puffing for breath. I have been off bed rest for one week and have somehow managed to get the kids to school (relatively) on time every day so far.

I am hoping that the birth of Darren will be likened to our trip to Alberta - so exhilarating that exertion is non-existent. I am hoping that holding him will make the journey seem like nothing. I'll look into his eyes as if I am seeing a great green glacier lake for the first time. I'll see his fingers and re-experience a distance so big that I will become insignificant. I'll run my finger down his little cheek and re-experience an awe just like I did when I came to the Valley of the Ten Peaks in Banff. I'll listen to his little coos and be drawn on with no thought of how spent I am. The excitement will be enormous. I hope that holding him will make me feel weightless again, like the exertion was effortless. Maybe his birth will trick my body into thinking the daily routine is nothing. When he is born, I am hoping I will think "I've done it." Truly. Maybe, just maybe, I'll be walking around like a pro - as if this whole thing was easy as pie - by the end of the summer. I will make it up Cardigan Mt. again, with two kids in tow and a kid on my back. I will. I might even go up the mountain backwards. You'll see.